Mooresville staff seek approval for $395,000 task order to design South Bridal pump station

Mooresville Water Resources Director Allison Craft told the council at a pre‑agenda meeting that the town is seeking to advance a replacement for the South Bridal pump station, originally built in the mid‑1980s, because electrical and construction constraints make a piecemeal upgrade unfeasible.

“All of that plan was to look at this regional pump station and replace pumps, upgrade some motors and things like that,” Allison Craft said, explaining that the station also serves major industrial customers and some areas tributary to Troutman. She said the town found the incremental approach infeasible and is moving forward with a replacement station sooner than previously planned.

The item before the council is a request to adopt a resolution on Monday to approve Work Order No. 1 under a master vendor agreement with Willis Engineers. Craft said the task order is structured as an hourly, not‑to‑exceed task order with a not‑to‑exceed amount of $395,000 to cover preliminary engineering, design and bidding.

Board members asked staff to clarify contract language after the agenda packet wording made the funding cap appear ambiguous. Craft agreed to revise the language to read clearly as an hourly, not‑to‑exceed amount. She estimated the design phase would take “probably close to a year” and said total time to have the station up and running could be in a roughly three‑to‑four‑year range on an expedited schedule.

The council did not vote at the pre‑agenda meeting; staff said the council will consider adopting the resolution at its regular meeting on Monday. The presentation included a request to establish the project ordinance needed to fund and move the project forward.

If approved, the task order will be executed under the town’s master vendor agreement framework, which staff said standardizes insurance, scope and contract terms and allows individual projects to proceed by task order without renegotiating baseline terms.